Not as long as they are steering the boat. All they really have to do if they wanted to stop the speculation is use the plunge teams bucks to jump into the market with opposite buys drive their spec investment to 0 . Game over.

To take the control away from the oligarchs would make the country, -any country-, a second class party in the financial competitions of the world. Every country is controlled by their oligarchs, each in a competition for the world's resources, -to see who controls, prospers from -and ultimately who consumes them.

Unfortunately, -there is no collective consciousness. As such this non-existent entity has no capacity to steer the ship away from the shoals created by a many-millennium-old pursuit of economic growth at any cost.

That -cost- now includes a declining standard of living, -worldwide.

Correcting the economic ship of state by its tired old terms, -will not stop the decline in the standard of living.

There is no possible immediate future that will steer the world away from seeking to restore growth, -which will only come at the expense of everyone's standard of living, -furthering the economic collapse.

It is hard to say. Watergate should have never happened except for Bernstein, Woodward and Katherine Graham. Something could trigger it.Sadly it most likey will not happen. But one can hope. Hey Tom Watson almost won the British Open

Let's draw the proper analogous picture of what is currently going on in the US economy. The US economy is the HMS Titanic. We the people are the poor schmucks in steerage. The very criminals and accomplices who destroyed the economy are the first class passengers and the crew. There are no where near enough life boats to save everybody. You can bet your ass that the first class passengers and the crew will be in the life boats when the ship capsizes. If any of us poor schmucks are lucky, perhaps we can survive a short while by clinging on to the flotsam and jetsam and dead bodies. Meanwhile the people in the life boats will make damn sure that they do not pick up any of the survivors, because they do not want to jeopardize their own situation.

As you know, George, and apparantly almost all readers from the poll results so far, political power and money are connected in this fraud. Economists and journalists have been writing this. For examples, I recently wrote the following to MIT's Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the IMF regarding his adroitly titled article, "The Quiet Coup." As people tune-in at different times I'll repeat: my solution is a Truth and Reconciliation policy. Those involved in harming the public testify under oath all they know in cooperation to FINALLY direct our assets for the public good. We give them amnesty. We give the giant criminals a subsidized retirement in exchange for their returning the combined trillions of dollars they stole. Those who refuse the deal get prosecuted. My message to Simon Johnson:

As you know, you're among a growing group of experts speaking out. Chris Hedges and David Cay Johnston, with Pulitzers in 2002 and 2001 respectively, write with similar perspective (Hedges: "Resist or Become Serfs" http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090406_resist_or_become_serfs/ and Johnston: “Free Lunch” http://www.reason.com/news/show/124116.html ). Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and eminent economist Jeffrey Sachs run the numbers of the current so-called bailout plan and point out the transfer of wealth from taxpayers to oligarchs (Sachs: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-geithner-summers-plan_b_183499.html and Stiglitz: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01stiglitz.html ). William Black, the senior government regulator of the S&L crisis, who Economics Nobel Laureate George Akerlof hailed as the world’s leading expert for understanding how the banking and financial oligarchs loot the public, was just interviewed by 30+ Emmy-winning journalist Bill Moyers. Black poignantly labeled the bailout as “criminal fraud” and “the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the fact,” and that the Bush and Obama Administrations are blatantly breaking the law by refusing to enforce bank insolvency laws. Transcript: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/transcript1.html . Analysis: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Economist_US_collapse_driven_by_fraud_0404.html , http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/economics-professors-global-crash-worse.html , http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/senior-s-regulator-says-government.html , http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/economics-professors-global-crash-worse.html . Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and in charge of Congress’ oversight of TARP will request removal of financial executives (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/05/useconomy-regulators ).

You point to the two clear answers of replacing the banksters from power and reforming the current banking system. Monetary reform maximizes the public benefit of reform. The American Monetary Institute is the nation’s leading organization for education and research on this topic. Executive Director Stephen Zarlenga’s two-page summary: http://www.monetary.org/need_for_monetary_reform.html . My one-page summary and 5-page summary with sourced background quotes showing the US history of this idea beginning with Benjamin Franklin and including many of our brightest minds (Monetary Reform Summary and Heart of Economics): http://classlink.lcusd.net/classlink/viewfiles.php?pid=4096 . Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the leading advocate in government for monetary reform: http://economy.kucinich.us/index.php , and Ron Paul has many of the right ideas but advocates the unnecessary and dangerous variable of linking money to a commodity. This reform is supported by the Green Party, the Constitution Party and Libertarians. The only ones in support of the current system are the oligarch’s political arms who dominate policy in the Democratic and Republican parties. Monetary reform is the strongest answer for restructuring our monetary system. Please review the above briefs: res ipsa loquitur, the facts will speak for themselves.

They'll never do it. The golden rule states that the one with the gold makes the rules. The big bankers are the bosses, not Congress or the President. Republican or Democrat, the same in the great scheme. The honest politicians (there are some) can not do much because the money changers hold our economic system as ransom. If we take actions against the money changers, then they will destroy our country economically.

that's the best joke of the day, 'guvmint' actually stopping corruption.

the truth is, 'guvmint' IS CORRUPTION. period. end of story.

and the sheeple? hell, they are likely to lay down with their tails between their legs and piddle in submission when the troops get deployed to quell the rioting that will ensue when the government defaults on it's debt this fall.

An elected President is not a savior and we should not expect that. We have the power to demand what we want and we need to do that NOW. Corruption is very pervasive in Washington, WE need to clean it up or nothing will change. Our voices should be overwhelming and no matter what ideals we adhere to, we should all agree that corruption has to go, no matter who is doing it! If we focus on that and nothing else, all will have to change.

kicking ass again not too likely. population is too very dumbed down. 'kicking ass' means turning off the television set, putting away the Wii and Nintendo controllers. Engaging in conversations about how to fix this mess with your neighbors, fellow co-workers (if you still have a job) and others you know.

it means throwing the bums out of office, and reforming the government from ground zero level.

What we need is a 5 million people tea party in Washington D.C. pronto or we will all beserfs. History has shown when people take their freedom for granted and are not willing to work for it the governing class considers them worthless. I must ask all of the pollrespondents...where is your outrage on the destruction of our great country and the enslavement of our children and grandchildren?Have we succumbed to just watching the boobtube and accepting all the propaganda from therulers as gospel truth and not willing to spend time looking for the truth? This blog helps but, maybe too little too late. When all hell breaks loose the establishment will use wars and panics to sway the attention away from themselves and their evil doings. I pray to God that this Swine Flu Pandemic scare and the forced upon vaccination campaign that is starting is not another tool in their bag of evil being forced upon our great country and it's people.

Ladies and Gentlemen,Please consider a revolutionary response of Truth and Reconcilation. This splits-off those wanting a "Scrooge conversion" to use their information to take-down every Black Op that enslaves us. It's the fastest and least costly in money and blood. GW discusses: http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/05/truth-and-reconciliation.html

The Bush/Obama global terrorist crime cartel wants to crack down on "We The People"; that will refuse to go to the FEMA concentration camps that the so called financial giants are building using cheap illegal alien labor...

Please Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to workPlease Enable Javascript for this Oil Price widget to work